Home-based hand hygiene practices of mothers in relation to infections in their infants

Abstract

Background: Infections are the leading causes of death in children. Most of these infections are transmitted through the hands of mothers, carers and health workers.
Objective: To determine the pattern of home-based hand hygiene practices among mothers of young infants attending a tertiary facility clinic in relation to infections in their infants.
Methods: A cross-sectional study of mothers of infants attending an immunization clinic was conducted using a self-designed, pretested questionnaire.
Results: The mean age of the 203 mothers was 30.3 ±3.8 years. The majority of the mothers received counselling about hand washing as part of antenatal care (79.8%), had access to water at home (94.0%) and always washed hands with water and soap (48.3%). Although 149 (73.4%) knew  hand sanitizers, only 28 (13.8%) used it. Close to half of their infants (46.3%) had various infections (diarrhoea, acute respiratory infections, and boils) within a month of the interview. Only counselling was associated with good quality hand washing practices (p<0.0001) while the age of child less than 6 months and good quality of hand washing were associated with the absence of infections in the infants (p = 0.029 and p<0.0001 respectively).
Conclusion: Half of the cohort of mothers practiced good quality hand washing but with poor use of hand sanitizers. With various infections recorded in close to half of their infants, it is important to emphasise better hand washing techniques and improve access to alcohol-based hand sanitizers.

Key words: Alcohol-based Hand sanitizers, Hand hygiene, Hand washing, Infants, Infections, Sagamu.